Monroe

Once, Monroe was the proud heart of frontier ambition—a town raised where the Silver and Tahquamemnon rivers met, built by veterans turned homesteaders following Colonel Monroe’s grand vision of peace through plowshares. Timber mills hummed, riverboats came and went, and the flags of the Stockman’s Association fluttered from polished porches.

Now, there’s nothing but silence. The land for twenty-five miles around lies under a pall of desolation known simply as the Blight. Every fence post, farmhouse, and wagon axle stands wrapped in ghostly crusts of lichen—green, gray, or bone-white—that crack and flake at the faintest breeze. Even the air feels stale, as if time itself hesitates to pass through. No birds call, no insects stir, and not even the hardiest weed dares to push up through the brittle soil.

Locals say the scent of ash still lingers, though the fires died near a century ago. Travelers who skirt the Blight’s edge speak of strange shapes glimpsed in the haze—sometimes men, sometimes things best left without a name. Scholars call it residual magic, though the old-timers mutter that Bludwan Nox’s curse never finished its work. The truth remains buried beneath that creeping skin of lichen, where Monroe’s bones—and its secrets—still rest untouched.